Posted
by
kdawson
on Tuesday October 20, 2009 @07:57PM
from the riding-the-pr-coattails dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It looks like IBM isn't much of a friend of Microsoft's anymore. Today IBM announced an extension of its Microsoft-Free PC effort together with Canonical Ubuntu Linux. This is the same thing that was announced a few weeks back for Africa (a program that began a year ago), and now it's available in the US. The big push is that IBM claims it will cost up to $2,000 for a business to move to Windows 7. They argue that moving to Linux is cheaper."

Ubuntu would be great solution for the enterprise. Basic email and office apps, what more do you need? The only problem with Ubuntu is that it needs more testing and validation before each release cycle. I've had basic functionality break between releases and this will not be acceptable for business use.

The past 6 months for several clients I have been running Proof of Concepts of moving from Desktop infrastructure to VDI(Virtual Desktop Infrastructure)

Microsoft have made licensing for running Windows desktops in a virtual environment so insane and added ridiculous costs just for the privilege of running Windows XP, Vista or 7 in a data centre that when you look at the ROI you don't see a massive benefit of shedding hardware.

A couple of those clients are actually now investigating migrations from Windows desktop to Ubuntu/SUSE Linux and running legacy Windows applications from Sun SGD/Windows Termial Server.

VDI offers huge opportunities for companies to shed the upkeep and maintenance of desktops and Microsoft are putting in as many hurdles as humanly possible to keep companies purchasing desktops every 3-4 years so they can still get their Microsoft tax from OEM's. I'm advising anyone these days to assess their dependence on windows if they are looking at VDI solutions and investigate deployments in Linux.

I've had basic functionality break between releases and this will not be acceptable for business use.

With Ubuntu for basic business use you won't need to upgrade at every release. Their LTS releases guarantees three years of support. Running an old version is usually not acceptable for a home power user, but it provides the stability a small business needs.

For a larger shop with at least one full time IT technician it would be possible to maintain your own repository with selected upgrades enabled. Then you can pick and choose the upgrades you need for new features in specific software. You would have the stability and security of an old release, and still get bleeding edge features where it matters with relatively little testing. This is how most major Windows shop does it for security patches and feature upgrades anyway.

Also the differences and testing needed between each version of the major distros is still far less than what's needed between each new edition of Windows. That's when you ignore the immense practical problem of global reinstallation of individual Windows boxes (yes, MS shills, fire away. It's possible on Windows as well. Call me when it's possible for my company to have absolutely all system and OS settings administrated centrally while ALL the user's personal customisations ("registry") and documents rest in his home directory on a file server, and when a motherboard fries, it'll take less than half an hour to physically replace the box and get the user back in business with all software and personalisations in place).

Ubuntu works for me. Large community, fixed release schedule.But whatever your choice, small to medium sized companies need to plan well ahead *before* they get locked in,otherwise one day you'll be in your office and your MS exchange server will say "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that", then you're stuck with the thing forever.

If Microsoft introduces an incompatible change in Windows 8 (so that, for example a given version of IE can no longer be installed, or a driver for a widely deployed device stops working), it can force a company into unbounded costs of updating their software and hardware. On the other hand, once initial migration to Ubuntu is done, only an effort of a dozen developers would be needed to compile Firefox 1.0 with new libraries, update a driver to work with 2.6 kernel and so on. While for an individual it may be acceptable - and cheaper - to buy new peripherals and applications - IBM can trivially afford custom development costs to keep an operating system running exactly the same way they want it.

It doesn't make sense for any large business with non-trivial needs to run an operating system for which they can not control future direction.

I do game development, and I use a lot of open-source libraries (BSD, LGPL, and the like, since I value having my source closed.) Every once in a while people ask me why I rely on libraries that I didn't write myself since, after all, they may be buggy!

Well, a few months ago I ran into a nice hidden bug. I tried to track down the developer and couldn't, and I needed a fix right then, like, within a few hours. So I wrote one, and it worked.

A month later I ran into a new bug, but this time I managed to find the developer. Turned out my fix was buggy (in a way that hadn't been triggered in the first place), but he'd just finished a non-buggy version, so I ripped out my patch and jammed his in and it worked. If I hadn't been able to find him, I would have had to sit down and fix it myself . . . but I could have.

Meanwhile, I have many, many thousands of lines of libraries that just tick along joyfully without a hitch. Overall, it's a huge win, and the fact that they're open-source means that I can fix them if they break.

I do game development, and I use a lot of open-source libraries (BSD, LGPL, and the like, since I value having my source closed.) Every once in a while people ask me why I rely on libraries that I didn't write myself since, after all, they may be buggy!

[...]

Meanwhile, I have many, many thousands of lines of libraries that just tick along joyfully without a hitch. Overall, it's a huge win, and the fact that they're open-source means that I can fix them if they break.

It really is the way to go.

Too bad your users don't have the same freedoms you enjoy. You're right—software freedom is the way to go. Sharing and improving, truly controlling one's own computer and the social solidarity that gives rise to is the single most important reason why nobody should use proprietary software. Including yours.

Games work on a somewhat different market than proprietary software does - the goal isn't to make a "good product" and then keep improving it, the goal is to make a "fun game" and then - fundamentally - it's done and you don't keep mucking with it besides fixing any major bugs. Even if I did open-source it, the most that would happen would be a few bugfixes and a few crummy third-party games with the same engine. It's just not worth the trouble - no gamers really care.

(See the open-sourced Quake engines to see the absolute most that you can get out. It's not much.)

Well to be a bit fair the guy is talking about how awesome open source is when it benefits him and how much more awesome closed source is when it benefits him. Not that I mind the infighting, but it sounds pretty hypocritical to me too.

You clearly have never worked inside a large company, or if you did, you didn't pay attention. They have better things to do with their precious developer talent than recompile Firefox and Linux kernels all the time. Stuff like writing Visual Basic applications to assure that they will forever be tied to Windows, leaps immediately to mind. Oh, wait...

$2,000 US to upgrade per machine? I don't know what in the heck IBM is talking about. I've been running Windows 7 on a two year old $500 laptop without any issues since Beta. They are easily over exagerating that cost, in my opinion, and frankly it turns me off of Ubuntu to see them buddying up with IBM in this way.

*On an interesting side note, I wonder if they calculated all the man hours and reworking of customized code that most shops would have to put in to go from a Microsoft shop to all Linux - I seriously doubt it.**Do we even want to get into the compatability issues with COTS that still plagues Linux?

Your neglecting the cost of system administrators installing new software on every machine, and of retraining every employee to use the new software. Actually, you're counting the cost as zero for yourself; how much total time did it take you to install the initial Beta and subsequent updates, and to learn how to use it? Is your time really worth $0/hour? If so, I really pity you... $2000 is about 40 hours of the average employees time. I suspect your total time wasted was probably about half that, but if your time is worth $100/hour, the numbers still add up to $2000.

If your admins are going around installing an OS and apps on each machine individually in a corporate environment, you need new admins. And there's nothing so new and different about Windows 7 that would require any retraining...hell, you can still make it look just like Windows 2000 if you want.

Ubuntu is an impressive distro for reasons many have argued here before. Karmic is actually a great improvement over Jaunty, and I think it's heading in a positive direction.

I might not have seen it, but I think Ubuntu's server area needs professional, detailed, Ubuntu-specific (if needed) DOCUMENTATION on everything an Ubuntu admin would need to use. http://doc.ubuntu.com/ [ubuntu.com] has the most up-to-date version of the Ubuntu Server Guide, which is a decent start. It pales in comparison, however, to the FreeBSD handbook.

These are all things integral to the operating system and its deployment. I'm not saying Ubuntu has to have the definitive guide to Nagios or other 3rd party software.

Some things are well covered in the Ubuntu Server Guide, "Pro Ubuntu Server Administration" and Prentice Hall's "The Official Ubuntu Server Book". I would like to see more enterprise tooling and documentation for Ubuntu Server before I expect them to make a significant trench in the enterprise space.

And for those who might say Ubuntu is a desktop-oriented distro,1) You haven't seen the work or the marketing Ubuntu has done on their server side, and2) I think Ubuntu could succeed if they can market themselves as THE operating system for an organization.

Apt supports file:/, so you can use that if it's just for personal use. Otherwise, you apparently just replicate the directory structure of an existing repository on your server and generate the necessar

I think everyone here is missing the point. This is less about how accurate IBM's claims are, and more about the fact a company as large as IBM with a name that established was actually willing to publicly say it. That by itself is a major benifit for Linux.

This is all about momentum, marketing, and market share. I mean seriously, we act as if Microsoft has never made erroneous or speculative claims in the spirit of customer coercion. This is how business works.

As the old Apple joke goes, your getting the OS with a $2000 dongle.
IBM is getting world class code for free and gets to sell support and branded hardware.
Now thats smart.
Value added and nice to the community.
Its win for IBM, win for corps, win for developers and end users.
Thats the good win btw:)

I find it interesting that these stories never seem to talk about the cost of retraining in that switch from Windows to Linux in the work place. The authors must be those same people that keep writing about how software companies should replace boxed product with downloading because bandwidth is free.

I'm not saying that many companies wouldn't benefit financially from the switch. Many would. But there are a lot that wouldn't. Anyone who thinks the Microsoft license and the cost of the hardware are the only expenses has no business being a decision-maker in their company's IT.

Yeah they forgot to mention the Cost of training for the switch from XP to Windows 7 and the also Office 2003 to Office 2007. Both are significantly different as far as interface goes and we have users that are going to require significant training no matter what we do. It's something that we haven't quite figured out how to tackle, as the ones who can't handle change scream the loudest.

Why isn't IBM jumping first, and take the lead to move the whole IBM to Linux desktop? You know, the do-what-you-are-preaching concept? Last week, 5 IBM people came to our office to pitch for a 3 million contract, and I saw every single person (technical and sales) is running Windows Vista, with the latest MS Office. The only thing I recognized as IBM-made is Lotus Notes, which we also use here.

About 8 years ago, it was the same thing with Sun. We had a bunch of Sun people came to our office (another company), and they kept bitching about MS Windows and MS Office, while at the same time preaching Linux and Star Office. And guess what they were running? Yeah, you got it. At one point, I had enough of their bitching, I told them with a straight face: "Why don't you guys install Linux and Star Office, and send me that fucking slide in open format?" They looked at me as if I was from Mars, then I turned on my laptop, and it was running Linux.

One suggestion to the big guys: don't preach, do it. Then everyone will follow, you have enough clout to take the lead.

You're misinformed.
IBM is already jumping. You can have a Linux workstation (Open Client for Linux - for Red Hat/Fedora, Ubuntu, SLED) in IBM.
What's more the default office suite in IBM is Lotus Symphony now. MS Office is slowly going away.
BTW: I've never seen Windows Vista installed on any work PC in IBM.

Well... Microsoft's tactics over the past decade have been even better than that (or worse, depending on your perspective). They've stated that they were aiming for cheaper and cheaper hardware, with the cost of computers focusing more on software and support. So, let someone else worry about "giving away" the PCs. I think they've literally stated they were foreseeing a future where the hardware is free.

I guess they enjoy the effects of market competition when it comes to *hardware*.

Yes, i've heard the talk about hardware being given away free with software... It's ridiculous tho...

Software *can* be given away free quite easily, you don't even have to pay all the bandwidth costs because third parties will mirror your files... It's within easy reach of almost anyone to acquire the tools necessary to write and distribute software.

Hardware on the other hand, while competition has driven the price way down, can never be free because each piece of hardware can only be cheapened to a point... It still requires raw materials for each and every unit produced, still needs to be physically moved, and also requires specialised equipment to build.

What is absolutely disgusting, is that software has not seen the same competition that has driven hardware development so much... If software had evolved in the same way as hardware, it would virtually all be free these days and would probably just come bundled with hardware.

This is a valid, but unlikely Premium Microsoft eXperience (PMX) endgame scenario. 2014: Microsoft is suffering diminishing sales and shares, beaten on one side by an Apple grown to a media/technology giant five times their size and on the other side by hardware partners also grown much larger than them desperately trying to compete but weighed down by a pathetic Windows 8 demanding near zero pricing for OS software both on the server and the client. Unable to drive the hard bargains they historically had, Microsoft finally admits they want to own everything. They launch an own-branded mobile thin client solution with Mesh MiWi, three day battery life, serving the desktop experience with their full software suite through their own-branded cellular data plan at $100.00. Naturally this blows up in their face as a blizzard of court filings bury them in paperwork first from their partners and then for their customers. The product is their most popular ever - right up until they get 10% market penetration and their network goes down at the same time their storage service consumes everyone's data. Ultimately the whole thing implodes. As the Sheriff is escorting him out of the building, Steve Ballmer has a stroke leaving him as aware as ever, but unable to move or speak.

2016:Apple Studios announce the summer blockbuster of 2017 will be "The Road Behind", the epic story from the beginning to its conclusion. Ballmer will be played by Scott Thompson [slashdot.org] and lured back from retirement for the role many believe he was born to play, Mark Hamill will be Bill Gates. Release will be by the usual streaming hi-def to pocket theatres worldwide as pay-per-view over the Apple 5G network. 2017:Widely panned by critics as low comedy that doesn't quite rise to cult status, it's rereleased immediately to Pico-SD where it sees a modest but profitable run.

Yeah, but that will come with a locked BIOS that periodically checks and makes sure that WindowsTM is running, and connected via the internet to one of the MS beacon servers. The system will shut down in 30 seconds, if not provided with an internet access. Kind of like killing the RPC service does on Win2k and later OS's. The OS will be a subscription only based operating system, the retro obsolete standalone licensing model will be deprecated. Everyone will be mandated by law to purchase a subscription, and if you can't afford it, the government will help you pay for it, at least initially. In your own best interest. But the hardware will be free! Kind of like you get a free cellphone if you sign up for a two year contract, and the monthly payments add up to well over double what the hardware alone would have cost you. Also the EULA will state that you agree that all your documents will be stored on the cloud, kind of like webmail, such as gmail/hotmail/yahoo mail is today. It will be extraordinarily difficult to download and store a copy of anything offline(meaning you would have to make hand typed copies), unless you're willing to upgrade to the Windows Plus service for another 1999.99/mo, kind of like Yahoo Plus, which will let you get POP3 access to your inbox, and POP4 access to your cloud computing My Documents folder. You can get an offline copy of your files, but they will not be good for much, because you'll have to jump hoops of a 30 step process to simply get it loaded into MS Breath or MS One. Still, there will be no way to remove the original copies online, and you can throw them into the Recycle bin, but nothing can ever be permanently erased from the Recycle bin. Microsoft will fund the increased cost of storage for free, but only for items in the Recycle Bin that you want to get rid of. Files in the regular My Documents storage will cost you about 8cents/terabyte/month (don't laugh, a 30 page powerpoint presentation by Office 19 will weigh in at a heft 400 GB filesize, among other reasons, because it will be 256 bit based), while the My Pictures folder will go at 4 cents/tb/mo, and My movies at a 0.01 cent/TB/mo. It will be illegal to scheme the system and try to store my documents files in the movies folder, because you will get ticketed, and get a real life court citation over violating the intellectual property laws of the contracts you have signed. There will also be a mandatory penance booth, called My Confessions, where you have to write a blog about everything wrong that you've done each week, and ask forgiveness for your sins. People caught not visiting this folder often enough will be red flagged, and real life psychologists will make them take multiple choice tests where there are two correct answers, and no matter which one he picks, the other will be deemed correct, and by failing the tests prove that he is in dire need of mental health attention, and a prescription. Who wouldn't help a fellow suffering human being who does not even realize he has a problem. Admission you have a problem is the first step towards any solution. Mind control? How about ascertaining that there is order in society, and security, by keeping very close tabs on everyone. Wait.. oh, never mind.

Funny because about 30 years ago it was IBMs competition and lock in on its proprietary hardware (basically giving away their OS) that started this whole Microsoft thing. Competition on proprietary hardware and vendor lock-in isn't much different than competition on proprietary software with vendor or platform lock-in.

I'm fine with IBM competing however they want (legally), but I doubt I'll ever see them as much different from Microsoft. To me they're the same animal with a different skin.

Modern IBM has more of a "Services vendor mind" than a hardware-oriented one. Traditionally, this means they prefer software products which are highly flexible and featureful, but difficult to "self-manage". And perhaps they're right, and Linux is a better fit for the outsourced IT model.

Plus, if you RTFA and decode the marketingisms about "Smart Work", this has less to do with Linux vs. Windows and more to do with IBM selling Lotus Notes to people.

That assumes that the value of the software is the same, value being usability, performance, etc. For netbooks, servers, and small dedicated devices I don't think Microsoft can compete at all.

I'm all for Linux, but it can't completely replace Microsoft just yet. I use it for almost everything. However, there is still some development that I find easier to do with a MS operating system. Granted it's stripped down high performance version of XP, but it ain't Ubuntu.

Now if nearly all of the programs being sold for the Microsoft platform worked equally well on a Linux platform then I believe that MS really could be shut out of the market with companies like IBM switching from Windows by default, to anything else.

Unfortunately, I find a lot of the open source offerings for Linux lacking compared to what it is available for Microsoft. I can deal with terrible user interface and poor documentation on some of the stuff, but I doubt I represent anything but a small portion of the market.

This is a real slap to Microsoft, but I hardly think this alone is really shutting them out of the market.

Please don't ever use the Wine as an example of Linux being compatible with Windows software. Because a huge majority of programs simply don't work with it, and those that do have had special coding done in Wine to make them work, and even then they are as buggy as hell.

No, Wine has a strict policy of not letting app-specific hacks into the mainline tree, if that wasn't the case things would be a mess and nothing would run. Certainly not everything works 100%, but there are many apps that run very well. For example, I played Diablo 2 on and off for several years through Wine, and having originally played it on 'doze, I can tell you it plays identically through Wine.

Also, Wine has made an enormous amount of progress in the last 4 years. It helped a lot that the Win32 API pretty much stopped dead between XP and Vista, as it gave the Wine team a huge amount of time to catch up instead of having to chase a moving target. The huge Vista backlash also helps quite a bit, Wine has only really started on D3D10 support this year or late last year, but the fact that really nothing uses D3D10 (because it doesn't work on XP) makes the lack of support largely irrelevant. There's really no point in comparing Wine 4 years ago to Wine today, so much so that it's probably not unreasonable to say that more has changed in Wine's last 4 years than the previous 12 years before that.

No, Wine has a strict policy of not letting app-specific hacks into the mainline tree, if that wasn't the case things would be a mess and nothing would run.

Actually, Windows has app-specific hacks. There was a/. story when Vista was coming out that linked to an MS blog in which the developer described how Quicken would not run on Vista, so MS hacked the API to identify Quicken and do as that app expected. They test all major software and most have app-specific hacks.

What software developers need to start doing, is targeting wine as their development platform...That way you don't really need to relearn anything or change the way you work, but you get linux/mac compatibility (of a sort) basically for free.

I recently made the big jump for our IT department from windows to ubuntu. We havent looked back and it has been a great learning experience for many. We now have a department that is a viral resistant island in our windows heavy environment. The only things I missed was Visio for network diagrams and IE for sharepoint access, which we provide via a simple XP vbox. Everything critical however is done via ubuntu. We have lost nothing and gained much. I think in many cases the decision to NOT switch is based on ignorance of the platform and fear of interoperability, rather than on solid factual information. In a business environment its a no brainer.

That assumes that the value of the software is the same, value being usability, performance, etc. For netbooks, servers, and small dedicated devices I don't think Microsoft can compete at all.

More netbooks sell with Windows [computerworld.com] than Linux. When IT staffers [techworld.com.au] were asked "the operating system of choice for IT netbooks is Windows 7". Some are hoping that because of Moblin [linux-mag.com] Linux will regain market share in netbooks. MS IIS [netcraft.com] comes in second in webservers, behind Apache. While down from it's high IIS still has a mar

I'm all for Linux, but it can't completely replace Microsoft just yet. I use it for almost everything. However, there is still some development that I find easier to do with a MS operating system.

I agree. In fact, I have argued that very point on Slashdot here for several years now. The development story on Microsoft platforms with Visual Studio,.NET and C# really is the bee's knees when it comes to writing advanced object oriented software. This IMHO, more than anything else, has kept Microsoft afloat since 2003; without.NET they would already be dead. If the Linux crowd really wants to strike a blow against Microsoft then it must STOP attacking Miguel and Mono and instead help make the.NET exp

Honestly, it's rigodamndiculous how difficult it is to find, download, and install software on Linux. At least compared to the Windows/Mac platform... 2 freakin hours to install some software on CentOS? Tracking down weird shit in the configure logs to figure out what the hell is going on. 30 minutes on Google to figure out it is a problem with the libxml2 linking. Another hour to fix the damn thing. That's not going to pass the Granny Test.

I agree wholeheartedly! I mean, I use RandomTechieLinuxDistro, and for some reason using a distro set up to be technical is a technical experience! The gall! OK, so on Ubuntu I would click on add/remove programs and have several thousand programs right there. So what? Grannies obviously usually compile their own kernels and just boot into a shell. Why would they ever use the most popular Linux distro out there, just because it takes way less time to install than XP or OSX, can be tested from a live disk, is

But no granny would ever use CentOS. It's not a consumer-oriented linux at all. In Ubuntu, you have 30,000 packages all nicely indexed with sensible descriptions. I've never had a package install fail in 5 years of use. Click Add/Remove and you can find stuff easily, with a star rating system too.

There are no stores that sell Linux programs. No online appstores.

Canonical's AppCenter launches in a couple of weeks, though it's just the same thing they had befo

I shoved my old PC out in the living room with Ubuntu preinstalled for the kids/parents, and they love it. Nobody has asked me how to do anything, and the technophobe parents (won't update an iphone, points at computer and asks what is wrong with the modem) more often than not use it as opposed to the one that is in their room on a desk right next to their bed.

Sorry bud but I don't understand your point. What's wrong with IBM recommending people switch to Linux? It was IBM who recommended Microsoft DOS originally..... now they are simply recommending a different product to run on the PC platform

The cost of software is never zero; the cost of admins installing new software and of retraining every user to use a new release of the software far exceeds the licensing costs of the software in most cases. I believe Microsoft's own estimates for the total cost of upgrading from Windows 98 to Windows XP were over $2000 per seat; I wouldn't be surprised if it was higher now. Microsoft continually shoots itself in the foot by completely changing the user interface with each new release of software, resulting in massive productivity losses as everyone has to relearn how to do their job. Eventually, people will realize the huge impact this has on TCO. Not having to throw out your OS and apps, replace them all, and retrain everyone every few years on Microsoft's schedule is one of the real, tangible economic benefits of using open source.

Microsoft continually shoots itself in the foot by completely changing the user interface with each new release of software, resulting in massive productivity losses as everyone has to relearn how to do their job.

This. This is why I ended up on the Mac the last time I was looking at a new laptop (sorry, Linux didn't meet my needs--as much as I wanted it to). I took one look at Vista and Office 2007 and was like, "oh good lord, why should I re-learn an interface???" I then looked at the Mac and found that, despite the fact that I hadn't used a Mac seriously in almost 10 years, I knew where everything was and how to do everything. Also, the MS Office interface still looked like something I knew how to use.

If you want decent performance, for a workstation, you want at least 2GB of RAM

Bollocks. Contemporary Linux distros run OK in 512 Mb, absolutely fine, with multiple apps running, in 1GB. Ubuntu's 256 Mb requirement is, well, optimistic, but you don't need 2Gb of RAM for normal desktop use (Firefox, Evolution, and Openoffice being used at the same time, say) under Linux.

For a modern desktop, then yes, you're not going to fit all the drivers and subsystems on a floppy.

But for a specific embedded system with very few subsystems, and basically no drivers, then yo u might get on a floppy.

The point remains that Linux scales up extremely well, and scales down extremely well. That is why supercomputers run Linux and small embedded devices run Linux.

Microsoft is terrified of reinventing its core products. Microsoft does push some innovation, and they do some core things right. But their biggest change was grafting their current broken OS on top of NT rather than reinvent properly. And despite the fact that they foresaw the internet being the core experience of your desktop very early on, they didn't forsee internet security issues. Even as they implemented terminal services, they still worked around a broken multi-user model. And even when they saw their kernel was behind the curve on performance, they instead decided to bloat it even more.

The headless Server 2008 was a step in the right direction. There were some claims that after Vista, they'd throw out their current API and start Windows anew, using an emulation layer (akin to Wine) to intercept old API calls. Vista's failure made 7 a necessity.

7 really isn't the savior press make it out to be. Most of the Vista UI regressions remain. With IBM and Google giving big-name credence to Linux on the HOME and BUSINESS DESKTOP, Microsoft should start quaking in their boots. IBM and Google have all the pieces to put together to deliver a really killer experience.

I overheard someone once say they want an OS that they can use in their car, in their phone, and on their desktop. They want it to be consistent, minimal, easy to use, and provide them seamless access to their data wherever they go. I suggested Google online services mixed with Chrome OS, and Android may deliver that to them within a year.

They paused, and then shocked, realized the future may be upon us very quick. And Microsoft is left with a prettied-up-Vista to show off.

Microsoft better wake up real quick with a real, next-generation operating system of the future. It needs to be secure, flexible, low-latency, scalable, modular and customizable. It needs to be their Unix. Only, Steve Jobs beat them to the punch with OS X.

Slowly, but surely, people will realize the Emperor is wearing no clothes. All the time, people see how sexy my KDE 4 desktop is. They ask me how they can get their computer to look like that. Then they hear it is free, legal, has no viruses, and easier to use than Windows.

You seem to be overlooking a crucial element in the "OS Wars". As many proponents of Linux or Mac OS seem to do. The issue is consistency and familiarity. These are the primary reasons that MS has stayed on top as long as it has.

First, you may point out that Linux "scales up extremely well, and scales down extremely well." You can also point out that Linux is "free, legal, [and] has no viruses." However, you can't really say it is easier to use than Windows. Not for someone who has never used Linux or any other OS besides Windows.

Whether XP is their first OS or they have progressed through the iterations from Win 3.1, they know Windows. They know where they need to go in the UI to perform the tasks they need to accomplish. They have spent valuable time learning how to perform these tasks in Windows. They are comfortable with it and they become proficient (to some degree) in its use.

Now, one day their Windows is taken away and they are given Ubuntu or Mac OS X. They have no idea where to go to perform the tasks they used to perform with ease. They have to spend their valuable time to relearn a new OS with a new UI. Their actual productivity takes a big hit and they are frustrated that they can't just get their work done. Imagine if that was everyone in your company!! Sure, the company could spend numerous man-hours training the users on the new OS, or they'll have to beef up their IT department to hand hold every user as they painfully become acquainted with the new OS. Or, they can keep using Windows.

Sure, MS makes some minor changes from time to time, but these are done gradually and limited. This gives time for the users to acclimate without making them feel lost. I would love to see MS "wake up real quick with a real, next-generation operating system of the future. It needs to be secure, flexible, low-latency, scalable, modular and customizable." However, look at the backlash they got from the changes they made to the UI in Vista and Office 2007. You can argue about the effectiveness of MS's implementation choices, but the underlying factor is they tried to change Windows for the better (at least that is their intent) and users hated it. I would argue that is one reason Apple and Linux saw an increase in adoption.

I'm still not sure how well Win 7 will go over as it has the same UI as Vista. As I recently moved my Windows box to Win 7 from XP, I can attest to the minor inconvenience of finding where MS has put things in this UI, and I consider myself pretty adept with computers and technology in general. Overall though, I like Win 7 much better so far.

The bottom line: advanced users and computer enthusiasts can adapt to a new and different OS much easier than the average user. Corporations are not going to go through the headache and growing pains of switching all their users to a new OS when many of the users do not know much more about Windows than what is required to accomplish their daily tasks. I believe Windows continues to persist as the dominant OS because MS does not make drastic changes to the OS. If users have to relearn how to use Windows, then they might as well learn another OS. That is when Linux and Apple benefit.

Fyi, in my office I'm running Mandriva since I set it up (4 years ago), at home for about 10-12 years now (Mandrake/Mandriva mostly). I'm using an Apple G5 laptop and an EEEPC also with Linux. And a Debian based server in office as well.

Maybe things have changed, but when I tried out a Bluetooth device for my EEEPC it didn't work. This was one with a chipset that was supposedly supported well in Linux - but it just didn't work. Less than two years ago.

A standard user account doesn't exactly have alot of control to begin with. The way Windows does things is they open up access and lock things down while in the UNIX word its all locked down and open things up (i.e. sudo)

Your point is only valid if you want to prevent a use from changing his wallpaper, screen savers and the like. There are (expensive) tools out there but dont handle very well.

Also in GNOME you have gconf and can put custom settings into a SOE very easily.

Your point is only valid if you want to prevent a use from changing his wallpaper, screen savers and the like.

I don't think that's entirely true, I can think of an exception or two. Particularly where the workstation may be used in financial dealings with publicly-listed companies. In some cases you do not want people to fiddle with the settings of applications, to - for example - change the location of an audit log. Well, you might want to, but the financial regulator might raise an eyebrow over it.

I used to work for a company that locked things down so much, that if you wanted to increase the speed of your mouse, you had to call the IT department, LOL.

This is a bit obsessive, but it's their prerogative.
Either its not that easy to prevent a user from accessing the mouse control screen in Gnome or KDE, or most administrators are "Windows Trained" and wouldn't know the steps to lock it down (most just run a 3rd party app that does it for them anyway).

Huh wah?? Obviously you must be from a parallel universe, rather uninformed or a clever troll. I manage the desktop branch of a medium - large sized organisation and the amount of pain involved in locking machines down in the distributed workforce age is quite painful. Sure there are apps to aid this (we employ ZenWorks) and they do work really well, but you can't have used anything more then a default install of Ubuntu. Honestly the amount of fine grained control mixed with sudo (neither run-as or UAC are sudo, they impersonate another user rather then privilege escalation) you get with *nix environment is leaps and bounds ahead of Windows. Admittedly group policy has some nice default templates, but as soon as you step an inch outside the norm (which is hard not to) be prepared for pain, so much so that the only place we employ GP is on our Terminal Services boxes. Even then a lot of the "Lock Down" is pretty much just obscuring things without actually adding any security.

Nice try, but I suggest you undertake a bit of a learning curve and you will be enlightened.

Huh wah?? Obviously you must be from a parallel universe, rather uninformed or a clever troll.

I agree with everything you say, but instead I get modded down into the dirt as your obvious statements falsely manifest as being so informative as to incite a Linux/Window war, which wasn't even the intention of my initial statement. You even incited the mods, good job.

Honestly the amount of fine grained control mixed with sudo (neither run-as or UAC are sudo, they impersonate another user rather then privi

The core of sudo is actually a very simple program - at installation it is SetUID root (but executable by users). When invoked, it reads the sudoers file to check whether the action is permitted (possibly checking a password, etc) and if so, simply execs the parameters it was passed. The relevant thing here is that sudo itself (and therefore any program executed by it) always runs as root. Remove the SetUID bit on sudo (or change its owner) and it's poi

I would suggest you try figuring out why these apps require admin, using sysmon and regmon. Most of these apps are just poorly made and the users need write permissions to some file or reg key. Once you give them that the app works just fine.

I don't know of anything similar in the Linux Desktop Environment to Windows Access Control or the other programs that are out there. Does anyone else?

The reason you don't know of Linux programs that let you lock down the desktop is that no such program is needed. A default Linux install will allow you to control access to files and programs on a user by user, or user group basis without the need for extra software. It will take a little bit more expertise than using some program with a gui on windows might, but it also allows much greater control of precisely what user can do.

Just change the permissions, or remove the stuff or make it not even executable.

The only reason apps exist for windows to do this stuff is because of the incompetence of the average windows sysadmin.

Right, and don't forget to sync up your passwd fiels across 30,000 desktops in your enterprise. I mean, it's just copying a file, right?

Obviously there are better ways to do it than that, even on *nix today (ldap, nis, etc) but hey - maybe those only exist for linux due to the incompetence of the average unix admin? Or those other tools that make things easier, like config files. Who needs config files? You can just configure each daemon when you start it up manually, with command line params! At least, you can if you're competent.

OS/2 Warp was made at a time when a significant part of those with the knowhow to make and support a evolving OS worked for Microsoft. Not to mention that it is known that Microsoft leveraged their situation, and growing economic capacity, to convince manufactures that adopting their OS was a good idea.

The Linux platform has a growing support base of not insignificant proportions at this point, and the Ubuntu system has proven itself to be quite robust and one of the easier implementations for new users to get a handle on. The capability to get technical help, support, documentation, and whatever else a company might need, is far different today with Ubuntu Linux than what is was for OS2 when it was introduced.

I can not predict how this will turn out in the end, but looking back and using OS2 as an example for how this will develop seems like conjecture.

The main problem with OS/2 was that it came out too soon, and so the muckety mucks decreed that it had to run on a 286, and so lots of it was 16-bit, and so when the 386 came out the move to 32-bit was painful.
The second problem with OS/2 was the GUI's single-threaded model....

"The second problem with OS/2 was the GUI's single-threaded model...."

What are you talking about? The Presentation Manager was totally multi-threaded. Do you mean the single input queue, which was Microsoft's idea anyway? I do believe they fixed the problem of the GUI "locking up" before they stopped selling it retail, before I switched to Linux at least.

And don't give me crap about open office solutions. It took most of these people 10 or 20 years to just get by with Office, you really think they are going to want to essentially re-learn everything? $2000 is only relevant if the people are actually fairly computer savy, which pretty much everyone everywhere is not nor do they care to bother.

I have converted several MS Office users to Open Office, they have never complained. It usually came down to one simple issue, $339.99 or free, pick one, they are the same. This is my experience with office workers, executives, and my 60 year old mom. There is almost no relearning, no one complains especially when the boss says thats how it is. If you disagree perhaps you should give open office a try, its not the same piece of crap you installed 10 years ago....

CFO: "Why can't I open this spreadsheet that accounting sent me?"
IT: "You're using Open Office...that spreadsheet was made in Excel and Open Office doesn't support X feature."
CFO: "Well how the hell can I open it then?"
IT: "We need to wait for enough other people to have the problem and for the developers to add the features."
CFO: "My god...how long will that take?"
IT: "Could be a few weeks, maybe months...or never."
CFO: "Fuck that. I don't have time to waste. You said Excel will open in? Get that installed on here NOW!"

Why is accounting running rogue software without permission from the CFO? How about "CFO: Why the hell is this accounting peon running Excel when the company switched to Open Office months ago? Fire him for piracy."

If you don't implement a standard company-wide, then you will run into trouble. Simple.

And don't give me crap about open office solutions. It took most of these people 10 or 20 years to just get by with Office, you really think they are going to want to essentially re-learn everything?

Unless you're like my employer, which uses Access as a platform on which to run an off-the-shelf VBA app (from which we're slowly migrating), is the retraining from Microsoft Office 2003 to OOo 3.x with its traditional menus really that much harder than the retraining from Microsoft Office 2003 to Microsoft Office 2007 with its ribbon?

Windows expertise fairly cheaply
Like the sidekick cheap?
or London stock exchange cheap?
The deal you get on the back of a napkin during a nice lunch is soon gone with recovery and the PR mess of epic fail.
The only thing cheap about MS is the first try as a student to get you hooked.
Just like a smart drug dealer at the gates.

Did you even read the Secunia links you posted? Both unpatched vulnerabilities require usage of Apache's mod_ftp module, which I've honestly never even seen used as most hosts and general servers use external (and hardened) FTP software like ProFTPd:

Successful exploitation requires that a threaded Multi-Processing Module is used and that the mod_proxy_ftp module is enabled. (...) An error in the included APR-util library can be exploited to trigger hangs in the prefork and event MPMs on Solaris.

And the second (first in order on the site) unpatched vulnerability deals strictly with a mod_ftp input validation issue. Again, I rarely even see mod_ftp even used as opposed to an entirely seperate FTP server daemon but disabling the faulty module is simple enough in environments requiring absolute security.

And input validation issues are usually patched fairly quickly anyways, I mean come on, this is 2009 and there are too many developers for the project that wouldn't let this sort of thing continue for this amount of time. Not to mention the fact that these unpatched vulnerabilities are nothing compared to the olde IIS Webdav exploit of a few years ago - too bad there wasn't a community aware of it sooner other than the underground black hats already using it to their advantage by the time it was brought to the attention of MS.

"PLEASE NOTE: The statistics provided should NOT be used to compare the overall security of products against one another. It is IMPORTANT to understand what the below comments mean when using the statistics, especially when using the statistics to compare the vulnerability aspects of different products."

But just for fun - don't forget that IIS needs to run on Windows: 212 Secunia advisories, 282 Vulnerabilities, 12 Unpatched...